Vyzer Weekly

Vyzer Weekly

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Vyzer Weekly episodes

  • Health Insurance Without a W-2 | Amber Flanagan

    What are your health insurance options when you don't have an employer plan? Amber Flanagan, breaks down the real choices — COBRA, ACA, union plans, small group LLCs, health shares, and HSAs — through the lens of risk management, not benefit shopping.


    Highlights:

    • Why a $110,000 emergency surgery is exactly what insurance should cover — and your copay isn't

    • How to form a two-person LLC with a family member to unlock nationwide group insurance (no revenue required)

    • ACA subsidies are income-based, not asset-based — and how investors with depreciation should navigate declared income

    • Union plans offer Blue Cross Blue Shield nationwide networks with no qualifying life event to join mid-year

    • HSAs as the most tax-efficient vehicle: $8,600 family deduction, tax-free growth, and you can invest the balance at Fidelity


    Amber Flanagan is the owner of Ashcon Financial, a Certified Financial Planner, and an insurance specialist focused on employee benefits and business succession planning.


    Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Subscribe to weekly calls: https://luma.com/vyzerweekly

    59 min
  • Build a Thesis, Not a Deal Pipeline | Scott Trench

    Most passive investors don't have a real investment strategy — they react to whatever hits their inbox. Scott Trench, former CEO of BiggerPockets (100K to 3M+ members in 11 years), joins Vyzer Weekly to explain why that approach cost him serious money in 2020–2022 syndicated deals, and how he now approaches private real estate investing with a thesis-first framework. The call dives deep into hard money debt funds — how they work, what separates quality operators from disasters, and why geography, leverage structure, and operator background matter more than advertised yield.

    Highlights:

    • Why any fund promising conservative underwriting + national scale + zero leverage + double-digit returns all at once is a red flag — not a feature

    • The 50–250 loan sweet spot for hard money debt funds, and why rapid AUM growth is a warning sign

    • How to evaluate operators: look for former flippers with deep local networks who can take over a distressed project themselves

    • Why holding debt fund income in a Solo 401k, IRA, or HSA is critical for high earners — and why a taxable brokerage account often kills the return

    • Scott's geographic diversification thesis: invest with 5–7 regional operators across unrelated markets instead of betting on one national fund

    About Scott Trench: Scott is the former CEO of BiggerPockets, host of the Passive Pockets podcast, and a Denver-based real estate investor with 20+ units across seven structures. He spent 11 years helping build BiggerPockets from 100,000 to over 3 million members and oversaw two private equity sales of the company (2018 and 2024). He now focuses on financial planning tools and content at BiggerPocketsMoney.

    Want to connect with Scott directly? Reach out at [email protected]

    Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Subscribe to weekly calls: https://luma.com/vyzerweekly

    1 hr
  • You're Already Running a Family Office | Christopher Nelson

    Most people with wealth think "family office" means something reserved for billionaires. Christopher Nelson, founder of Wealth Ops, argues the opposite: if you have any meaningful wealth, you're already running one — you just might be running it badly.


    In this episode, Christopher breaks down the seven components of a micro family office, the cautionary tale of the Vanderbilts (a $100B fortune gone in three generations), and why the three-bucket portfolio framework used by ultra-wealthy families applies even at the $1–30M net worth range. We also dig into the CEO question: are you actively managing your wealth, delegating with oversight, or abdicating by default?


    Highlights:

    • The Vanderbilt vs. Rockefeller contrast — why $100B disappeared in three generations while the Rockefellers are still growing seven generations later

    • 87% of financial education targeting executives and business owners comes from firms selling something — the family office playbook is intentionally withheld from the mass market

    • The three-bucket portfolio model (growth, income, capital preservation) that replaces the retirement drawdown mindset

    • Why isolation is the #1 hidden challenge for first-generation high net worth individuals — and how community changes the game

    • The seven components every family office — from $2M to $2B — must have: CEO/vision, portfolio architecture, legal/tax, operations, performance/data, team leverage, and governance


    Christopher Nelson is the founder of Wealth Ops, the engine behind the micro family office. He helps first-generation high net worth families build the framework, infrastructure, and systems to manage and grow their wealth across generations.


    Want to connect with Christopher directly? Reach out at https://www.wealthops.io/go


    Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Subscribe to weekly calls: https://luma.com/vyzerweekly

    55 min
  • Recession Timing & the Private Credit Trap | Jeremy Roll

    What does it look like when a recession is already baked in — but most investors haven't noticed yet? In this episode, Litan Yahav sits down with Jeremy Roll, a seasoned real estate and alternative asset investor managing 60+ LLCs, to dig into the macro signals that have him hoarding cash, avoiding private credit, and waiting for one final downturn before deploying capital aggressively into real estate.


    They cover recession timing, why private credit funds can fail even when assets perform, the hidden CapEx pause that will slow AI adoption, and the specific metrics Jeremy uses to evaluate real estate deals in a high-rate environment.


    Highlights:

    • Why PE ratios at the 97th-99th percentile historically precede 30-40%+ market corrections — and why this time isn't different

    • The "fire door" problem in private credit: how redemption waves can force solvent funds into distressed liquidations with no warning

    • Oil prices as the #1 historical cause of US recessions — and why the current geopolitical setup has Jeremy watching it multiple times a day

    • Mobile home parks vs. multifamily: why a 9-year average tenant tenure (vs. 50% annual turnover in apartments) fundamentally changes risk math

    • The 1,000-day Bitcoin cycle and how Jeremy is positioning around it with puts rather than outright shorts


    Jeremy Roll is a full-time real estate and alternative asset investor based in the US, managing capital across 60+ LLCs spanning multifamily, mobile home parks, senior housing, and more. No guest contact information was shared during this call.


    Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Subscribe to weekly calls: https://luma.com/vyzerweekly

    45 min
  • Vyzer Weekly: How to Spot GP Fraud & Red Flags in Private Markets | Leyla Kunimoto

    Most LPs get on a call with a GP, like what they hear, and wire the money. Leyla Kunimoto does the opposite: she reads the financials first, and only 10% of deals make it past the first two minutes. In this episode of Vyzer Weekly, Leyla shares the exact framework she uses to vet GPs, detect fraud, and avoid the herd mentality that gets retail investors into trouble — with specific insights on private credit, real estate funds, and the Cliffwater CCLFX situation unfolding right now.

    Highlights from this episode:

    • The Cliffwater CCLFX situation explained: a $32B private credit fund facing 14% redemption requests against a 5-7% quarterly cap — and what it means for everyone holding private fund equivalents

    • Why unrealized NAV is unreliable and how to use realized gains/losses as the real signal for fund health

    • The cash flow statement test: why refusing to provide one is an automatic deal-killer, and what auditor requirements should look like at different AUM thresholds

    • Hard money real estate lending vs. private company lending — and why collateral transparency matters more than advertised yields

    • How fraud prevalence in private markets dwarfs public markets, and why diversification alone won't protect you from counterparty risk

    About Leyla Kunimoto: Leyla is an independent retail investor and newsletter writer who has been investing in private markets since 2020. She invests only her own capital, publishes a private newsletter twice a week (nearly 15,000 subscribers) covering private credit, real estate, and infrastructure, and spent years cold-calling hundreds of GPs to build her due diligence process.

    Want to connect with Leyla directly? This is her website - https://www.accreditedinsight.com/

    Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Subscribe to weekly calls: https://luma.com/vyzerweekly

    55 min
  • Why Many Fundraising Decks Are Misleading (and How LPs Get Trapped)

    Most investors think vetting a deal is about reading the deck carefully. The real skill is knowing what's missing, what's misleading, and what to ask before you wire money.

    In this episode of Vyzer Weekly Calls, Litan and Mike are joined by Hans Box, a CPA-turned-real estate operator and LP investor who has raised over $100M across 25+ deals and holds nearly 100 K-1s a year across real estate, private equity, and venture capital.

    Hans brings both sides of the table — he has underwritten and sponsored deals, and he has been burned as an LP early in his career, which is what pushed him into the operator seat in the first place.


    In this conversation, we discuss:

    • What the first 10 minutes of reading a deck should tell you
    • Why unrealistic year-one income projections are one of the most common red flags
    • How bridge debt was misused as permanent debt and why it blew up so many 2019–2023 deals
    • What fees to expect and when a fee structure is a warning sign
    • The difference between preferred return and cash-on-cash — and why LPs consistently confuse the two
    • How catch-up provisions work and what you're actually giving up when one is buried in a waterfall
    • GP skin in the game: what it signals and what it doesn't
    • Where Hans sees opportunity in multifamily right now

    This is not a presentation or a pitch. It's a live, open conversation focused on how experienced investors actually read deals before committing capital.

    About Hans

    Hans is a CPA with a decade of experience as a multifamily sponsor, and an LP portfolio spanning real estate, private equity, and venture capital.

    Reach out to him here: [email protected] https://boxwilson.com/


    🎧 Listen / Watch the recording:

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    📅 Join future sessions live:

    https://go.vyzer.co/vyzerweeklycalls

    Vyzer Weekly Calls are weekly, live conversations designed to help investors think more clearly about risk, private investing, and long-term decision-making.

    1 hr
  • Life Insurance as a Capital Tool - Not What You Think

    DESCRIPTION

    Most investors either dismiss life insurance completely or buy it the wrong way. Very few actually use it.

    In this episode, I sit down with Russ Morgan, co-founder of Wealth Without Wall Street, to cut through the noise. Russ spent years as a certified financial planner who actively advised against life insurance — until the 2008 crash changed everything. Since then, he's built over $50,000/month in passive income, and 100% of that capital came from loans against a life insurance policy.

    This is not a pitch. We go deep on how it actually works, when it doesn't make sense, and what most people get wrong on both sides of the debate


    💡 HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE CONVERSATION

    → Banks are the largest holders of life insurance in the world. Wells Fargo alone holds nearly $20B in cash value — more than all their real estate assets. They don't have heirs. They use it as tier one capital.

    → Russ built over $50,000/month in passive income across 20 asset classes. Every single dollar came from a loan against a life insurance policy.

    → The "buy term and invest the difference" argument only works if you actually invest the difference — and keep investing through a crisis, a divorce, a bad year. Most people don't. Human behavior isn't a spreadsheet.

    → Loans against your policy are not taxable. And you can deduct the loan interest against investment income if you deploy the capital into deals — same as borrowing from a bank.

    → There's no age cutoff. Russ's mentor bought a new policy two weeks before he died at 85.


    🔗 CONNECT WITH RUSS MORGANBook a free call with Russ's team: https://go.oncehub.com/PassiveIncomeGamePlan?src=vyzer

    📅 JOIN US LIVEEvery Thursday at 3PM ET - live, open conversation, no slides, no pitches.Register: https://luma.com/vyzerweeklyStay updated: https://go.vyzer.co/vyzerweeklycalls


    🎙 LISTEN ONSpotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2eApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E


    54 min
  • What’s Really Happening in Private Markets? | Aleksey Chernobelskiy

    Private markets are shifting.

    Capital is moving. Some managers are adapting. Others are still operating like it’s 2021. Investors are becoming more selective. Transparency expectations are rising.

    But most of us only see a small slice of what’s actually happening.

    In this episode of Vyzer Weekly, we sit down with Aleksey Chernobelskiy, founder of GP LP Match, to unpack what he’s seeing across real-world private equity, private credit, and real estate deal flow.

    This is not theory.
    It’s pattern recognition from the front lines.

    00:00 – Why private markets feel “noisier” right now
    02:00 – Aleksey’s background: From institutional real estate to private markets
    04:30 – The transparency gap between public and private markets
    07:45 – Why private deal flow feels fragmented and inefficient
    11:20 – How investor behavior has changed since 2021
    15:10 – Where capital is actually flowing today
    19:30 – Why many managers are still stuck in the old cycle
    23:40 – Real estate vs other private asset classes
    28:15 – What sophisticated investors are prioritizing now
    34:00 – Structural mismatches between investors and managers
    41:30 – The future of private market capital matching

    • Where capital is actually flowing in private markets
    • How LP behavior is evolving
    • Why some private equity and private credit managers are struggling to raise capital
    • The role of transparency in fundraising
    • Structural inefficiencies in private deal sourcing
    • Real estate demand vs broader alternative investments

    If you invest in private equity, private credit, real estate syndications, or alternative assets, this conversation will sharpen how you think about capital allocation and manager selection.

    No pitches. No slides.
    Just clearer thinking.

    Aleksey Chernobelskiy is the founder of GP LP Match and one of the most followed voices in private markets. He writes extensively about incentives, transparency, and capital allocation dynamics.

    🎧 Watch more Vyzer Weekly episodes:
    YouTube Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    🎙 Listen on Spotify:
    https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    🍎 Listen on Apple Podcasts:
    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480

    📩 Join our live weekly investor calls:
    https://go.vyzer.co/vyzerweeklycalls

    51 min
  • Family Dynamics Are the Biggest Risk to Long-Term Wealth

    Most families don’t lose wealth because of bad investments.

    They lose it because of breakdowns in communication, alignment, and trust.


    In this episode of Vyzer Weekly Calls, Litan Yahav is joined by Josh Gentine, a family enterprise and governance advisor who works with multi-generational families and large family offices around the world.


    Josh brings both personal and professional perspective, having grown up inside a multi-generational family business and now advising families on governance, succession, and family dynamics when wealth and business overlap.


    In this conversation, we discuss:

    • What’s usually already broken by the time families seek help
    • Why technically sound wealth plans fail in real life
    • How communication breakdowns quietly destroy alignment across generations
    • The different challenges faced by first-, second-, and third-generation families
    • Why conversations about values matter more than conversations about numbers
    • How issues like prenups, succession, and control often surface deeper family dynamics

    This is not a presentation or a pitch.

    It’s a live, open conversation focused on how families actually behave when real money, power, and legacy are involved.


    About Josh Gentine

    Josh Gentine advises families on governance, succession, and long-term family enterprise strategy.

    Website: http://benchconsulting.com/

    Email: [email protected]


    🎧 Listen / Watch the recording:

    YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E

    Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e

    Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480


    📅 Join future sessions live:

    https://go.vyzer.co/vyzerweeklycalls


    Vyzer Weekly Calls are weekly, live conversations designed to help investors think more clearly about risk, private investing, and long-term decision-making.

    53 min
  • What War Zones Teach Us About Startup Risk and Resilience

    In this episode of Vyzer Weekly, we host a candid, investor-to-investor conversation with Shelly Hod Moyal, Co-Founder and Co-CEO of iAngels, Israel’s most active early-stage VC platforms.


    The discussion focuses on how venture investing changes when startups are built under real, persistent uncertainty, not market volatility or macro narratives, but active conflict.


    This is not a political conversation and not a pitch. It’s a practical discussion about underwriting risk, founder behavior under stress, and how experienced investors think about outcomes when conditions are genuinely hard.


    Topics we cover:

    What “real risk” actually looks like in early-stage investing

    Which risks are often mispriced or misunderstood from the outside

    How underwriting changes when uncertainty is persistent

    Founder behaviors that matter most under extreme stress

    Whether conflict creates opportunity or simply delays outcomes

    Lessons that only emerge after deploying capital repeatedly


    Timestamps:

    00:00 – Why we wanted to have this conversation

    02:10 – Shelly’s background and iAngels’ investing model

    05:20 – What “real risk” actually means in early-stage investing

    10:05 – Risk patterns investors outside Israel tend to misprice

    16:40 – How underwriting changes during active conflict

    23:15 – Founder behavior under stress, what matters and what doesn’t

    30:20 – Valuations, timelines, and liquidity expectations

    36:45 – Transferable lessons for investing in high-uncertainty markets

    42:30 – Closing thoughts and key takeaways


    Highlights:

    • Why most investors misunderstand “risk”
    • How real-world uncertainty reshapes underwriting decisions
    • The founder traits that compound under pressure
    • Why conflict doesn’t necessarily mean worse outcomes
    • What investors should and should not copy from war-zone investing


    Links:

    🔗 Register for upcoming live weekly calls:

    https://go.vyzer.co/vyzerweeklycalls


    🎧 Listen on Spotify:

    https://open.spotify.com/show/7F0JHBoB5SWvAi12WNmR2e


    🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts:

    https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vyzer-weekly/id1859061480


    📺 Watch past episodes:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVH9Pz5-HyDBtJSrgG6tbZhhdX1v-6G6E


    🌐 Learn more about Vyzer:

    https://vyzer.co

    45 min

About Vyzer Weekly

From the publisher's feed

Vyzer Weekly is a recurring live conversation where investors come together to think more clearly about markets, risk, and private investing. Each Thursday we break down what actually mattered in the markets, take a focused deep dive into a key investing principle, and open the floor for real discussion.